Great British Bake Off recipe: This pork and piccalilli pie is the stuff dreams are made of

Pork pie and picallilil are a match made in pie heaven (Picture: Hazel Paterson)

Pies and tarts week sounds more like something you’d see advertised on a student union wall back in the 90s but alas no, it’s week five of the Great British Bake Off and after last week’s ‘bingate’ and the loss of both Ian and Diana everything is to play for.

Due to the fact that I’m currently in Melton Mowbray, famous for it’s pies, it had to be a pork pie recipe from me this week.

This is no ordinary pork pie though, for this beauty contains a hidden layer of homemade piccalilli, yes it’s the stuff dreams are made of, and even better… it’s actually really easy to make. Win.

Basically if you can chop stuff, mix stuff and use a rolling pin you’ll nail this recipe.

Chilli piccalilli:

Chilli piccalilli makes people happy. Fact. (Picture: Hazel Paterson)

This piccalilli is less of a traditional version as the sauce is more of a flavoured pickling liquor for the veg. It’s fresh, crunchy and has converted many a piccalilli hater.

The recipe makes enough jars to keep in your fridge to have with cold cuts and cheese or give away to friends (you can obviously reduce the quantities or use a good shop bought version if you really, really must).

Ingredients: (makes the amount shown in the above photo)

10 large radishes, sliced

1 large red onion, chopped

20 french beans, topped and tailed and diced

1/2 head cauliflower cut into tiny florets

1 small yellow courgette, diced

1 small green courgette, diced

1/4 cucumber, deseeded and diced

2 red chillies, sliced

4 tablespoons sea salt

500ml cider vinegar

400g caster sugar

2 tablespoons mustard seeds

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

3 tablespoons English mustard powder

2 tablespoons ground turmeric

1 1/2 tablespoons cornflour

handful fresh fennel fronds, chopped

1 handful chopped fresh chives

1: Put all your chopped veg into a large non-metallic bowl, sprinkle with the salt, pour over just enough eater to cover the veg, stir well to help the salt dissolve and leave overnight.

Chop all your veg into small pieces. (Picture: Hazel Paterson)

2: Put your vinegar, mustard and fennel seeds in a saucepan and bring to the boil, remove from the heat and allow to infuse and cool completely.

3: The following day rinse your veg really well in cold running water to remove the salt. Combine the mustard powder, sugar, and cornflour with some of the cold vinegar, mix well then add to the rest of the vinegar mix and heat gently until the sugar dissolves.

4: Pour it over your chopped veg, stir in the fennel fronds and chives, put into sterilised jars and refrigerate.

2 pigs trotters (if your butcher doesn’t have any use a few pork bones instead)

1 white onion, quartered

2 sticks celery, halved

2 carrots, quartered

2 bay leaves

3 mace casings (much cheaper to buy from Asian supermarkets)

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

For the filling:

400g pork shoulder, trimmed of fat and sinew

300g pork belly, trimmed of skin, roughly chopped

150g smoked rindless bacon

2 sprigs fresh thyme, chopped

10 leaves fresh sage, chopped

1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

2 teaspoons ground white pepper

1 tablespoon mustard seeds

several tablespoons piccalilli, vegetables only, not the liquor.

For the hot water crust pastry:

200g lard

220g water

575g plain flour

2 teaspoons sea salt flakes

1 beaten egg to glaze

1: Start by making your stock, put the trotters (or bones) into a large saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to a simmer. Skim off any scum that forms, when there is no more scum appearing add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for about an hour (top up with more boiling water if it becomes too shallow to cover the trotters and veg). Remove the veg and continue to simmer until the stock has reduced by about 1/3 or you have about 500ml of stock, add salt to taste. Refrigerate the stock for several hours, remove the top layer of fat from the now solid stock. If you feel it has not set enough simply return to the heat and reduce a little more.

2: Chop 3/4 of the pork shoulder by hand into small pieces. Put the remaining shoulder into a processor with the pork belly and bacon and blitz. You still want it to have a good texture so don’t over mix to a paste. Combine all the meats together with the herbs, mustard seeds and seasonings and mix well.

3: Make the pastry: put the lard and water into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Put your flour into a large ceramic bowl then pour over the boiling lard and stir well with a wooden spoon to form a dough.

4: Once the dough is cool enough to handle, knead it on a lightly floured work surface for about 30 seconds until it becomes more silky. Slice off 1/4 of the dough, wrap in cling film and set aside to become the lid later.

5: Roll out the dough into a rough circle about 5mm thick. Use any extra lard to grease a tall round cake tin with a removable base measuring approximately 18cm diameter and 9cm tall (don’t worry if yours is slightly bigger or smaller). Let the dough cool for a couple of minutes to make it more manageable then flour the surface, fold in half left to right, then half again top to bottom.

6: Place the dough over your cake tin and unfold around the tin.Gently push the dough around the base and edges ensuring no cracks or gaps appear. If they do simply block them with more pastry. Try and ensure the sides and base are of an even thickness.

7: Half fill the tin with the pork filling then add a layer of piccalilli making sure it’s just the veg and not the juice (I rested it in a sieve beforehand to drain), then cover with more pork filling. Don’t pack it too tightly as you want your stock to seep into any gaps later.

8: Use the reserved lid pastry to roll out a disc and cover the pie, egg wash the inside of the pie then cover with the lid and seal tightly making sure there are no gaps. Trim off any excess pastry from the edges and use a chopstick or wooden spoon handle to make a hole in the centre for the steam to escape.

9: Brush with egg wash then decorate with any remaining bits of pastry.

10: Egg wash once more then cook in an oven pre-heated to 200C for 30 minutes then reduce the temperature to 170C and cook for a further 90 minutes.

11: Remove the pie from the oven and allow to cool for ten minutes. Heat your stock just until it becomes liquid once more and use a funnel to carefully pour the stock into the pie. Once the pie is full allow to cool completely then refrigerate overnight to set.